1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the fields of telecommunications and computing, and more particularly, to the integration of voice, video and computer data in a single network conferencing system.
2. Prior Art
As we enter the new era of multi-media video conferencing technology, more emphasis is being placed on the utilization of personal computer work stations, both within the office and at home, as a primary means of communications with others inside and outside the facility. Until recently, however, the differences in the nature of the types of data needed to be communicated (i.e., voice, video and computer data) in addition to the wiring infrastructures of the facilities has inhibited the integration of these “services” within a single network conferencing system.
Conventional conferencing systems are currently focusing on the use of local area networks (LAN's) as the infrastructure for video conferencing and messaging in the belief that LANs, in addition to wide area networks (WAN's) accessed via a LAN-WAN gateway, are the most ubiquitous communication medium available to desktop computers today. The industry, therefore, is focused on trying to achieve solutions for video conferencing and messaging that use the existing LAN wiring and infrastructure in place within the buildings.
Although LAN's are the preferred interface for computer data and message trafficking within a particular facility due to the high bandwidth capability and available server functions provided for LANs, this medium of communication does not readily allow for the integration of voice and video data with computer data. This is because LANs transmit data asynchronously, whereas voice and video data need to be transmitted in an isochronous format that guarantees a certain amount of bandwidth. LANs are also expensive networks to set-up and maintain. On the other hand, if a telephone PBX were used as the primary communications medium for a conferencing system, problems would arise with respect to the quality of the transmitted video image since PBXs have low bandwidths. Furthermore, the use of telephone PBXs is also expensive due to the cost in connecting to and utilizing the proprietary protocols of typical-site PBX. Alternately, current video-conferencing room systems provide for WAN interfaces. They also provide higher bandwidth, isochronous connections. However, they do not allow for sharing of the WAN interfaces amongst many clients and thus are not economical.
Accordingly, the Telephone PBX and the LAN/WAN Gateway force a choice between bandwidth and isochrony: PBXs provide isochronous channels but they are very low bandwidth connections used primarily for voice, while LAN/WAN Gateways, provide high bandwidth, but the channels they provide are not isochronous.
In contrast the present invention is based on the assumption that the telephone wiring or CATV wiring in a building is far more ubiquitous than LAN wiring. The hypothesis is that every business desktop PC has an associated telephone, while every home or small business PC is also associated with a Cable TV (CATV) connection in addition to a telephone. It would therefore be advantageous to provide a single conferencing mechanism for use by desktop computers at home or in the office which provides an integrated conferencing system having low-cost, bi-directional, isochronous, high bandwidth communications channels implemented through use of the ubiquitous wiring within the building infra-structure.